By Evangel Davis | PAS Intern
My name is Evangel Davis and I am a senior at Mills College in Oakland, CA. I am double majoring in international relations and history, which made this internship a great opportunity for me. I had been checking the Holt website religiously, seeing if there were any internship opportunities that opened up, and finally one did! I chose to do my internship at Holt because I am already somewhat familiar with the organization, being adopted from South Korea in 1994, and wanted to give back to such a fantastic organization.
This past summer I was in Eugene, Oregon as Holt’s post-adoption services intern. As the goal of my internship, I was tasked with doing a comprehensive review of Holt’s work in each country throughout their 60-year history. My project had three phases: the first part was to interview Holt’s program directors and write up the information I gathered, the second part was to calculate how many adoptees were adopted from each country, and the third part was to find orphanage and facility photos. Due to the short duration of my internship, as well as availability of program directors, I was only able to cover China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Romania, Thailand, Uganda, the United States and Vietnam. Some of these countries Holt still works in, but in some locations, Holt no longer has programs.
I strongly believe that the information I compiled over the summer is important for many reasons. As an adoptee from South Korea, I’m always interested in learning more about where I came from, and love reading information about the culture (and how it differs from ours). In many cases, the outcomes of my research project will allow other adoptees to increase their knowledge about their birth country and become familiar with other programs Holt has been involved with as well — not just inter-country adoption.
This internship was a great opportunity for me. I learned a lot about myself, the variety of programs and services that Holt offers, and I worked alongside many committed, passionate individuals.
